Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

Post by panarky » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

baconner wrote: post #3

Get ready for ads to start addressing you directly by name and doing other like things to get your attention. Google isn't usually _too_ overt about these sort of things but the less savory ad networks could get really unpleasant. "Hey there George Thompson, click to see one weird trick to hide your arrest records from your wife Mary"

  You are prohibited from creating ad content which implies knowledge
  of personally identifiable information or sensitive information
  about your customers ...

  Sensitive information about your customers can’t be used in Customer
  Match campaigns or ads. Additionally, you can't use data from
  your Customer Match campaigns to identify sensitive information
  about your customers.

  Interest or participation in adult activities (including alcohol,
  gambling, adult dating, pornography, etc.)

  Sexual behavior or orientation, such as sexual orientation
  inferred from a user's visit to a particular website

  Racial or ethnic information, such as from sites or apps that
  collect affirmative racial or ethnic identification from visitors

  Political affiliation (other than the public registration information
  of United States voters), such as from sites or apps that solicit
  or store people's affirmative political stances

Post by zombees » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

calbear81 wrote: post #8

This is already an option on Facebook called "Custom Audience" so I'm not surprised that Google is releasing this as well. Regarding the privacy implications, almost every major e-commerce site already uses third party marketing systems, oftentimes with e-mail address, so this is pretty much the same. They're not selling the data to a 3rd party since they are a 1st party using a 3rd party tool.

Post by jtokoph » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #7

baconner wrote: post #3

Get ready for ads to start addressing you directly by name and doing other like things to get your attention. Google isn't usually _too_ overt about these sort of things but the less savory ad networks could get really unpleasant. "Hey there George Thompson, click to see one weird trick to hide your arrest records from your wife Mary"

As another posted commented, there will be a minimum list size to prevent this sort of thing. For example, Twitter already allows targeting to specific individuals, but the list minimum is 500 (if I'm not mistaken).

Post by timthelion » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

Post by tuckerman » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #14

panarky wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are prohibited from creating ad content which implies knowledge of personally identifiable information or sensitive information about your customers ... Sensitive information about your customers can’t be used in Customer Match campaigns or ads. Additionally, you can't use data from your Customer Match campaigns to identify sensitive information about your customers. Sensitive information includes: Interest or pa…

_you_ are prohibited, but Google is not. I'd suspect they will mix in more and more of this context (from Nest, from emails you provide, from your driving habits on Google Maps) to make ads "more personal" as time goes on.